“Tell me about yourself and your background.“
Officially:
IEEE – Senior Member
AGU – (former) Member
PhD – Colorado School of Mines
MSEE – University of Nevada – Reno
BSEE – University of Nevada – Reno
Previous: NASA Langley Research Center, Goddard Space Flight Center
A job with EG&G at the Nevada Test Site. Only a technician … but the techs got to play with the real stuff – after building and fixing it. One of my favorite jobs. Las Vegas was a far different town then. Where did all the desert go?
I learned instrumentation from some of the best around in those days. Can I mention Alan Paul’s name? The engineers and scientists of Lawrence Livermore and other similar organizations set high standards … and expected to exceed them. They also expected us working stiffs to exceed them as well. Can’t speak for Livermore but that attitude seems to have disappeared a decade or so ago. It seems more “What can we get away with?” rather than”How much better can we do?”
Old-timers: I used to walk to school in the snow with no shoes – uphill both ways. (I actually went to the end of the driveway when I could see the bus coming. But it was a 100 ft driveway. And it was often enough through the snow.)
I became an engineer when I began to appreciate the difference between the tech and engineer duties. The right mentors make a difference; you don’t “search” for mentors – it’s a relationship that clicks … or doesn’t. I was lucky.
A little bit of school ends in a BSEE degree. A job with a small company. Meteor-burst communications. Burst data from remote sites bounce off random meteor trails and collected at a central location. Subsurface water depth; Sierra snow-pack; Lake Tahoe surface level.
A little bit more school with a stint at a missile manufacturer (AIM-54 Phoenix. 100 mile range, 3700 mph. One fast jet over New York fires at another fast jet over Philadelphia – and hits it. And it’s now obsolete.) Grad classes at Arizona. Douglas Hamilton, William Kerwin, and Larry Huelsman were outstanding instructors … but life suggested a trip back to Reno to finish my MSEE.
A job with one of the premier spacecraft companies – again the professional standards were set high. Again, may I mention Garry Cleveland? My mentor. I learned much from him – I still have copies of several of his papers. Well-written and thorough.
(Not so long ago I had a junior engineer ask about a worst-case analysis of a common circuit. It happened to be one I did under Garry’s guidance … before CAE. The junior engineer’s comment was along the lines of “We don’t go into that much depth”. That’s too bad … and why are people getting paid to design this same identical circuit that was used in the 80s? It’s a good circuit but this was identical down to the part number suffixes.)
But there was one time I had a “proposal” in mind only to be told project management and proposal writing required a Ph.D. My interest was in “earth” measurements – “earth” being defined in my mind as any planetary body; asteroids and Mars are places where “earth” measurements are made. Diamond thin-films and cryogenics if I recall.
I had the chance to go to Stanford for a PhD on someone else’s checkbook. I’ve done a number of damn fool things in my career. Instead I left that company – to my everlasting regret for many reasons … and to this day even though that was mumblety years ago. Sometimes hindsight sucks. Biggest professional mistake I’ve made. Made 4 major life-altering boo-boos in the space of 2 years.
Oops …
But one must push forward; there’s no going back. And Colorado School of Mines is not a slouchy school either.
My interest is instrumentation – I chose to avoid a third degree in electronics engineering and chose to study the phenomena that’s to be measured – a better instrument can be designed when an understanding of the phenomena to be measured is in hand. I’ve run into too many scientists that “design” instruments with little knowledge of electronic networks: mostly what they can – and can not – do. The “raw” data is not the output of an ADC and “an algorithm” can not fix GIGO. On the other hand, I know of many EEs who have little understanding of that to be measured. Not everything can be properly processed with an FPGA. Too much fit the problem to the solution rather than a solution for the problem.
So my choice for a Ph.D. topic in this line of business seemed to be either “get it there” – astrophysics, or do something “while it’s there” – geophysics.
I obtained my Ph.D. in Geophysics (with electromagnetic/magnetic fields emphasis) from Colorado School of Mines and obtained my first two patents based on my Ph.D. research. Glad I got them; won’t pursue another on my own. Patents are a corporate-level and/or money game. Got another while at NASA – but that was their game, not mine.
Followed the PhD with a few years of interesting but “hodge-podge” projects. One thing I learned is that I’m not a businessman. I’m the Steve Wozniak, not the Steve Jobs. (not that it’s important to anything but I had the privilege to work with Steve Wozniak’s father – one of those who influenced my outlook and work. But I never met Steve.)
So let’s see now. I’ve been both a 1099 (contract) and W2 (employee) worker. I suppose one way to describe my experience is “hired gun”. I get hired to solve a specific problem then off to the next job. Lots of different experience; spend too much time hustling the next job. On the other hand, lots of different experiences. Often very interesting experiences.
Aside from my own work and several attempts to get a business off the ground, I’ve worked for several start-ups. I literally just finished burning a bunch of stock options that never paid off. Don’t work for a start-up unless you’re one of the principals (meaning you’re authorized to sign paperwork on behalf of the company) … or you get paid a >LOT< of money. Rule of thumb: Take your annual salary. Cut the last three zeroes off. Double what’s left. And charge that as an equivalent hourly rate. So what if it’s over $200k? If they can’t afford it, you’re not valuable to them … or they’re under-funded. Or both. Voice of experience? Keep looking. Ask me how I know …
Some of my projects …
Built switched-mode power supplies (SMPS) at the integrated circuit level. A couple of major semis, mostly start-ups. Did quite a few of those come to think of it. Can’t bring myself to think I’m an experienced SMPS designer though …
Got the chance to work on a development team for an IBM subcontractor on what is now the 7HP SiGe process. The Thomas Watson Center is/was quite the place; the foundry was in Fishkill, NY. My only – and hopefully last – time in NYC.
A small company had developed a metallurgical means for the basis of an “electronic nose”. I was hired to incorporate enough electronic networks to make it a “smart sensor”. Seriously under-funded – I learned many unintended lessons here. A 2-owner company with 50/50 ownership has a hard time making decisions. If $5k/year is the entire “electronics development” effort, …
Taught introductory electronics for a few semesters. Interesting experience. Didn’t mind teaching but introductory classes are “mechanized” to a certain extent. I’d rather teach grad level classes in my specialty. I could get a 2-semester class together … but I probably won’t.
A grocery chain was interested in following – or exceeding – Wal-Mart’s approach to “smart markets”. This was a $40B company – twice NASA’s budget. Couple of inter-related projects. Monitor produce freshness and time to market from the field. Truck drivers have been known to turn off air-conditioning on reefers to save gas. That lessens produce freshness. They’ve also been known to take detours. I can see the driver’s point of view … but I’m working for management and the goal is to provide the freshest produce to the customer.
Management was also interested in power-harvesting. Semi-nefarious purpose – advertising – but then, I work for management. The customer would wheel the cart along the aisles which were sensitive to weight (think electronic drums). The cart wheels would run a little generator for an on-cart display. This would activate localized RFID to highlight “specials” in the aisle where the shopper happened to be. Solar panels on shelves to help recover some of the light – not really effective but worth consideration. Also RFID on goods as they were placed in the cart. The total would be continuously updated so that check-out was fast and smooth. Customer comfort and convenience was an important issue. A retail grocery store is an interesting EM fields environment. The company was sold and the new owners had no interest in such things. A 5-person team and a \$150M budget. Sweet – very sweet – if it had worked out. And it was at home! (I usually need to take jobs away from my preferred place of residence. I don’t do what Micron does.)
Worked for a company developing instrumentation for coal mines – primarily “void detection”. A type of “forward” radar to “look” about 40 – 50 ft through a coal seam while being mined. Coal is highly non-isotropic to EM fields. A void in a coal mine could mean water or poisonous gas – usually methane. Neither is good – people die in coal mine accidents. I learned about making “progress” rather than “product”. The pay schedules are different.
Another company worked on instrumentation for what is now known as “fracking”. Everything fits in a 2 7/8″ pipe and the instrumentation needs to be at the head close to the bit. An environment that makes spacecraft design look easy. Drilling mud is forced through a 1″ hole in the pipe; the electronics is actually placed on a doughnut PCB: 2.5″ OD; 1″ ID. Power is generated by the mud flow through a local turbine. The pipe stem may be 20,000 ft long; the instruments close to the drill bit. G-forces exceed space launch. One method of transmitting data back uphole is by pulsing the mud flow. Not a speedy method.
Worked for a mining company attempting internal development of induced polarization (IP) systems. A means of detecting subsurface conductive zones. No one drills willy-nilly anymore. Lots of advanced technology is used in mining. Margins are tight and a dry hole costs but doesn’t produce. I don’t know that anybody does broad-base exploration anymore. They know where the potential ore is; it’s recovery fiancing now.
A ton of dirt is roughly the size of a refrigerator. An ounce of gold is about the size of a Hershey’s Kiss. Used to be 1 oz gold per ton was rich (it still is). Now 0.001 oz/ton may be worth digging for. My figures are out of date but $1400/oz retail vs. about $1100/oz cost. Diesel fuel is a big expense; it’s nice to know to dig “here” instead of “someplace near here”.
I was getting a bit tired of the hired-gun approach. Too much moving; rarely saw a project through to completion. I’ve circuits in data books – or had, the companies no longer exist … but only pieces and not as my work. There was a time when my wife and I were paying for our home – where we weren’t living – as well as renting two additional places because she worked way over at that place and I worked way down at another. Whew! Working to pay the cost of working …
A longer term position opened up at NASA. I’m of the generation of “Wow. NASA.” Couldn’t, wouldn’t, didn’t say no. But it was a term position. I got extended for a year, received a patent for my work there … and then my time was finished.
Allow me to pat myself on the back a bit … NASA
And picked up another at a different NASA center.
And now we know enough about both Dave and Dr. McGlone.